A Different Way to See the World

What we think about the world affects our lives at the deepest level.

Let’s start by defining the term “World” we are talking about here.

To begin with, the world is our surroundings. It is what we wake up to every time our eyes open and we look around. And if we are physically blind, then it is what we perceive by all our other physical senses. Everyone who thinks, lives in a world.

It is also everything around us that we cannot directly control. It is the politics, the human and natural events, which, for the most part, are happening elsewhere, but may also be happening right outside our front doors.

In addition, it is our mental construct of life around us. It is how we think about things. All of this is our world.

Some Observations.

1.      We all have different worlds. We each see the world from a different perspective based on our physical locations, our ages, our past histories that have brought us all the way up to our present moment reading this thing.

2.      What we think about the world affects our lives at the deepest level. It is what we, in a sense, are up against. It is our problems, our challenges, our limitations and even, perhaps, our perceived potentials. How we manage the world will often reflect on how we see ourselves. (It shouldn’t but that’s a topic for another day).

3.      The idea of “world” has the problem of grouping people with things. It can be interchangeable to believe that the world is out to get us and people are out to get us. Both are mental constructs and both have nothing to do with out there, and everything to do with how we manage our own lives.

A Few Tips.

1.      Ignore the world for the most part. What do I mean by this? Simply focus your mind and energies elsewhere. Replace its significance or importance in your life, with things that are more important and significant. And what are these? See observation number one above. Your world and my world are different so I can’t help you with this one. All I can report is that it helps me to relax and enjoy life in the middle of chaos as I count my blessings – all those things that are more important than my problems.  

2.      Don’t expect reinforcement from others. Remember, we are all struggling and dealing with the problems our individual worlds are throwing at us. They don’t have time to discuss things with you in general. Now, more specifically, you should have a tribe – a group of people you can talk things over with; but don’t burden them unnecessarily; be of mutual support. Help and encourage as you can but don’t take over their lives and maintain your own independence as well.

3.      Change and recovery feel glacial from the inside. It’s a nice idea to change your perception of the world, but this is just the beginning. Living this out takes time, intention, and repetition. This why it is critical to continually return to the still point of your turning world even when it does not seem to be making a difference to that outer world as you are perceiving it right now.